Obama to Import Ebola-infected Foreigners into America

As President Ebola continues to refuse closing America’s borders to travelers from West Africa — the epicenter of the Ebola epidemic — Judicial Watch, the non-partisan D.C.-based citizens watchdog group, reports on Oct. 17, 2014 that the Obama administration is actively formulating plans to admit Ebola-infected non-U.S. citizens into the United States for treatment. Specifically, the goal of the administration is to bring Ebola patients here for treatment within the first days of diagnosis.

Crazier still, Obama’s plans include special waivers of laws and regulations that currently ban the admission of non-citizens with a communicable disease as dangerous as Ebola.

Judicial Watch’s source says the Obama administration is keeping from Congress this illegal plan that endangers the public health and welfare of Americans.

Well, all you Congress critters in the House and Senate, now you know! So what are you gonna do about this travesty?

Meanwhile, to add to the cheery news [sarc], scientist Peter Jahrling of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease warns that the Ebola virus may have already mutated into an even more virulent and contagious variant than previous strains.

Jahrling has dedicated his life to studying some of the most dangerous viruses on the planet. In 1989, he helped discover Reston, a new Ebola strain, in his Virginia lab.

Julia Belluz reports for Vox, Oct. 13, 2014, that Jahrling’s team discovered from tests on Ebola patients in Liberia that the virus appears to carry a much higher “viral load.” In other words, Ebola victims today have more of the virus in their blood — and that could make them more contagious.

Jahrling describes the current Ebola virus as burning “hotter and quicker,” which means it’s more contagious and easily spread. As he puts it, “If true, that’s a very different bug.”

On the Ebola virus being air-borne, Jahrling says, “You can argue that any time the virus replicates it’s going to mutate. So there is a potential for the thing to acquire an aerogenic property but that would have to be a dramatic change.”

There are five strains of Ebola, four of which have caused the disease in humans: Zaire, Sudan, Taï Forest, and Bundibugyo. The fifth, Reston, has infected nonhuman primates only. Though scientists haven’t been able to confirm this, the animal host of Ebola is widely believed to be the fruit bat, and the virus only seldomly makes the leap into humans.

The current outbreak involves the Zaire strain, which was discovered in 1976 — the year Ebola was first identified in what was then Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). That same year, the virus was also discovered in South Sudan.

The Ebola virus is extremely rare. Among the leading causes of death in Africa, it only accounts for a tiny fraction. Africans are much more likely to die from AIDS, respiratory infections, or diarrhea.